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Any site is equipped with a gate made of wood, metal, plastic or a combination of them. The style of the entrance is usually kept in accordance with the fence, but there may be something original. Making a gate with your own hands is not so difficult, in any case, there are some simple options.
Устройство
The gate consists of supporting pillars and a door leaf with or without a frame, fixed to the pillars with hinges (sometimes called canopies). Pillars can be brick (stone), wooden or metal. During masonry, small pieces of thick metal or a metal rod are immured in brick, to which loops are subsequently welded.
Metal poles can be made of round or profiled pipes with thick walls. Round pipes are used less and less: it is more difficult to weld on them, to attach something. A profiled pipe with the same cross section (diagonal compared to diameter) and wall thickness withstands large wind loads, it is easier to weld or fasten to flat edges with self-tapping screws or bolts. Therefore, it is it that is increasingly being used in the construction of gates. Another option is to weld a metal corner to the frame from a profile pipe. In this case, the filling will turn out as if in a frame.
Wooden poles are usually used if the fence is wooden. Most often, this is a pine timber treated with protective impregnations that prevent (or at least slow down) the destruction of wood. But there are combinations when the poles are made of metal, while the gate and fence are wooden. This is because the wood in the ground rots quickly, even after a protective treatment.
A little about the design of the support frame. It can be just two pillars dug into the ground – the option is suitable if the soil is not prone to heaving (sands, sandy loams, fertile, but not clay soils).
For heaving soils (clay, loam), it is desirable that the pillars be connected at the top and bottom. In this case, the probability of the wicket skew after the winter is very small. If you do not want to make a threshold in the opening, the lower jumper can be lowered below ground level (by a bayonet and a half). It will need to be carefully coated with an anti-corrosion compound, primed, and painted in several layers.
Profile pipe frame
Perhaps the most versatile version of the gate is with a frame made of a profile pipe or a metal corner. Any material can be attached to a metal base: wood, sheet metal, corrugated board, metal picket fence, flat slate, polycarbonate, chain-link mesh, metal rods, forged or bent elements, or a combination of several materials. There are a lot of options, and the design is selected in the same style as the fence.
In this case, the profile can be welded both with a narrow part and a wide one. Having welded the pipes with a wide part, you can easily fix the lock like on a regular door, without welding additional fasteners over the frame.
Dimensions and materials
For a solid gate, a profiled pipe with a section of 60 * 60 * 3 mm is taken as pillars. In this case, it is better to choose thicker walls, as this will affect the durability of the structure. The frame usually uses a 40*20*2,5mm rectangular tube. The strength of this pipe is sufficient for medium wind loads. With small wind loads, you can take a wall of 2 mm, but it will be more difficult to cook. Everything that is thinner than 2,5-3 mm must be welded in a special mode, and this is far from easy. If the winds are stronger, you can either increase the wall thickness, or use rolled products with a larger section: 40 * 30 or 40 * 40, even 40 * 60.
The height of the gate with the upper crossbar is usually about two meters, without the crossbar – from 1,2 m. Low ones are usually made in internal fences that delimit the site or in translucent low fences. For deaf high fences made of profiled sheet, wood, flat slate, the height at the level of the fence is more characteristic. The minimum width of the gate is 90 cm, the optimum is 100-110 cm. These dimensions are based on practical considerations, since in winter or autumn it will be inconvenient to pass through a narrow gate with a width of 70-75 cm in outerwear, and it will also be difficult to carry, if necessary, any those big things.
It is also worth talking about how deep to bury the pillars. The standard solution is 15-20 cm below the freezing depth. Based on this value and adding the height of the gate to it, supports are made.
With a shovel or with the help of a drill, a hole is made in the ground, at the bottom of which a bucket of crushed stone of the middle fraction is poured. Then a pillar is installed, placed vertically, covered with rubble (you can use broken bricks) and poured with concrete mortar. When the mortar gains at least 50% strength (after 7 days at a temperature of +20°C), the wicket frame can be fixed.
Independent production with a photo report and explanations
The fence is made of profiled sheet with brick pillars, respectively, and the gate is made of profiled sheet. Even during construction, metal plates welded to the pipe were immured into the pillars. It was decided to make a gate with additional jibs – so that the profiled sheet is more rigidly fixed, and also to strengthen the lock attachment area. The lock is old so far, replacement is possible.
We weld the wicket frame using an inverter welding machine from a profile pipe 40 * 20 * 3 mm. We will put “in place”, welding to the mortgages. Cut off pieces:
- two crossbars from one pillar to another (it turned out 108 cm),
- two racks – 185 cm high.
We cook the frame
We do not weld the crossbars, but only “grab” them to the embedded plates – so that they hold. Literally two welding points per attachment point. Before welding the second side, we check the horizontalness of the crossbar. We put the building level, correct the position, then grab it. So, it turns out that there are two horizontal jumpers in the opening.
We weld the vertical parts to the installed crossbars. At the junction with the jumpers, the angle is strictly 90 °. We check during the connection process, if necessary, correct. The seam must be strong, so we scald it from all sides, along the perimeter of the pipe.
The result is a frame tacked to the posts. We check the corners again, otherwise it can skew later, the gate will stop closing / opening.
We put loops
Next, the most crucial moment – it is necessary to weld the hinges. We took standard metal hinges for swing gates, which are full in any hardware store and on the market. They must be installed strictly vertically, and even both on the same axis. Otherwise, the gate will be difficult to open, and this will eventually lead to its breakdown.
We weld the lower loop first, double-checking its verticality with a level. We install the second on the same axis. First, we grab it to the mortgage, check it, and only then, if everything matches, carefully boil the seam. If everything is calculated correctly, the loop is adjacent to the frame pipe, so it will not be difficult to weld.
When the hinges are installed, remove the “tacks” that hold the gate. It now magically opens/closes. Then it’s up to the small thing – to weld the jibs, and for this we cut off pieces of the pipe of the same length, apply it to the intended installation site, mark with chalk how to cut it. We take a grinder with a cutting disc for metal, cut it off, check it, if necessary, refine it (with a grinder or a file – depending on the size of the “jamb”). When the jib “has become”, we weld it.
Next, we weld the reinforcement under the lock on the gate. To mount the old metal lock at the top, it was necessary to weld a piece of a corner, otherwise it was impossible to fix it.
The last welding work – it is necessary to close the open sections of the pipes, which are directed upwards and to the sides. If they are not closed, rainwater and snow will get into them, the pipes will begin to rust from the inside, which will accelerate the death of the frame. Welding at this stage is not necessary, you can seal it with silicone or find plastic covers of a suitable size.
Finishing works
Finishing work with metal – grinding, priming and painting the frame. At the end, we attach a profiled sheet to the frame, and in this case it is no different from installing a profiled sheet on a fence.
We put a grinding wheel for metal on the angle grinder (grinder), clean all the welding spots, removing rust, etc. By the way, it’s more convenient to do all this when the gate is in place.
So that the frame of the gate does not peel off for a long time, treat it with a primer and paint it in the desired color. Next, we fix the profiled sheet after cutting it to size.
Not necessarily, but it is likely that you will have to cut somewhere. Therefore, to begin with, we fasten the cut sheet literally to four self-tapping screws – in the corners, make marks – where to cut, remove, cut off, try on again. When you have achieved normal work, you can fix it.
You can fasten both with screws and rivets, it will not be difficult to choose the appropriate colors.
Wooden gate for giving
Fences in dachas rarely represent an impregnable barrier. Usually these are not too high wooden fences. For such a fence, it makes sense to make a gate out of wood. There is a very simple, no-frills. Only dry boards will be needed (provided that the poles are already there).
If there are no woodworking machines (thickness gauge, milling cutter), it is easier to buy an edged board of the required parameters. The width / thickness of the boards is arbitrary, as are the distances between the planks. Most often, a pine board 5-10 cm wide and about 2 cm thick is used, the distance between the planks is 2-6 cm. More or less is possible – it depends on the desired degree of “transparency”.
It is desirable to have boards dry, otherwise they may later be bent with a screw or in an arc. So that the wood does not collapse longer, it must be treated with protective impregnations. Now there are compounds that protect even wood that lies on the ground (protective impregnations for wood that is in direct contact with the ground). But some of them give the wood an extraneous shade (most often greenish, olive). If you are going to paint the gate, it’s not scary. If you are going to use light varnish, pay attention to this point.
Simple garden gate
This is the easiest option that can be done not by a carpenter, but by an ordinary person. If you know how to saw, hold a hammer in your hands, hammer nails, everything will work out. You won’t have to do anything difficult.
They take two planks or two beams (the parameters depend on the weight of the gate). In length, they are equal to the width of the future gate. The bars are laid across. The distance between them is slightly less than the height of the gate. It makes sense to place them at the same distance as the bowstrings on the adjacent fence (as in the photo above). Then the gate will look like part of the fence.
Choose a flat surface, place the slats and measure diagonally from the corners of the crossbars. It must be the same. This must be done otherwise the gate will turn out to be a curve.
Processed and dried pickets are laid out with a given distance on the crossbars. To make it easier to maintain distances, you can use trimmings of the same length, laying them between the boards (you can also use a matchbox if you are satisfied with its size). We take nails (two on the bar at the top and two at the bottom) and fasten the boards to each cross-beam.
After all the planks are nailed, we turn the gate leaf over, try on the jib, outline the lines along which the jib should be cut. We saw off the excess with a hacksaw, put it in place, fasten it – two or three nails on both sides. Now we attach each board to the mowing. This gives the wicket additional rigidity.
We choose metal hinges, you can – barn. They are small in size, just for country gates. If desired, they are attached to the front of the gate – they give a certain zest. With the same success, you can fix them on the back side.
We make a gate from boards: the correct design
A simple garden-dacha option is described above, but there is a more complicated and more reliable design. It will require minimal carpentry skills, as it is going to connect the spike / groove. This wooden gate consists of two thicker strapping rails, two rungs (upper and lower) and a brace. The thickness of the upper crossbars and shtaketin (vertical strips) is the same, and the thickness of the strapping rails is three times greater (thicker is possible, thinner is not). For example, shtaketiny, crossbars and mowing have a thickness of 20 mm, strapping slats – 60 mm.
A groove is cut out in the slats of the strapping, a spike is cut at the ends of the crossbars. The connection is smeared with carpentry glue, clamped in a vise. The mowing can also be installed – on a spike and groove, but it will turn out to be of a complex shape. Therefore, more often it is simply attached to nails – it’s easier that way. After the frame is assembled, pickets are nailed. They can be nailed from the side of the yard or from the side of the street. Bolted connections can be used instead of nails, in which case the fasteners also serve as decoration. It makes sense to put stainless or bronze rivets.
Photo of beautiful gates
Making a gate not ordinary, but beautiful is not so difficult. And this does not always require expensive materials. What is always needed is fantasy. Then even a bicycle, a shovel, a knot or a pick is a material for an exclusive design.